ArticleCancers2025
Tertiary Lymphoid Structures Are Associated with Favorable Clinical Outcomes and Negatively Correlated with Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in Esophageal Cancer.
Article in Cancers, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prognostic value of tertiary lymphoid structures in high-risk esophageal squamous cell carcinoma following neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy.BMC cancer · 2026Article
- From TLS architecture to functional immune niches: division of labor among CAFs, HEVs, and antigen-presenting cells in cancer immunotherapy.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Tertiary lymphoid structures in neoadjuvant and perioperative cancer immunotherapy: a review and proposed framework for biomarker interpretation and validation.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEsophageal cancer remains a highly aggressive malignant tumor with poor prognosis, despite advances in combination therapies and novel immunotherapies. Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs), characterized by densely packed CD20
methodsIn this retrospective study, 124 clinical samples from patients who underwent radical surgery for esophageal cancer at our institute were analyzed. We investigated whether TLSs could serve as a prognostic factor and examined their association with tumor microenvironment factors.
resultsThe presence of TLSs was an independent prognostic factor for overall and progression-free survival in multivariate analyses. A high level of TLS formation correlated with better nutritional status, fewer M2 macrophages, and greater plasma cell infiltration. Additionally, little TLS formation was observed in areas with abundant CAFs, and quantitative analyses revealed a significant negative correlation between TLSs and CAFs.
conclusionsTLSs enhance antitumor immunity via macrophages and plasma cells and can be a valuable prognostic indicator in patients undergoing surgery for esophageal cancer. Targeting CAFs may prove to be a promising therapeutic strategy to enhance tumor-immunity-related TLSs.
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